


Pretty

by Sigurdjarlson



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/F, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Miscarriage, References to Leopold and Cora basically, marital rape, spousal abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 21:05:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7070131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sigurdjarlson/pseuds/Sigurdjarlson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The healer who comes to check on her is young but she has a stern face. The other servants seem to be intimidated by her and yet her hands are surprisingly gentle when she tends to her. She doesn’t even exchange gossip with the other servants when they think she’s asleep.</p>
<p>“Child Queen.” They all call her when they think she isn’t listening and she can never bring herself to correct them. She was no child and she hadn’t been a child for a very long time. Her mother ripped all that away from her and then her husband came in and destroyed what was left of her.</p>
<p>This strangely quiet healer however barely ever speaks to the other servants except to bark orders at them. Later, she sends them away in a fit of rage, irritated with their foolishness and incompetence. Not long after, while being tended to Regina noticed that the woman was looking at her with a peculiar sadness in her eyes. It wasn’t quite pity but she’s too tired, too broken to even care if it is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pretty

She doesn’t cry this time. 

She wants to but the tears won’t come.

Her handmaidens take the bloody sheets away and the King sends a healer to tend to her. He makes his displeasure perfectly clear but he doesn’t lash out or scream at her. In fact he doesn’t say anything. He just looks at her with cold, empty disappointment in his eyes. She isn’t sure which reaction would have been worse.

The message is clear nonetheless.

She failed again.

The healer who comes to check on her is young but she has a stern face. The other servants seem to be intimidated by her and yet her hands are surprisingly gentle when she tends to her. She doesn’t even exchange gossip with the other servants when they think she’s asleep.

“Child Queen.” They all call her when they think she isn’t listening and she can never bring herself to correct them. She was no child and she hadn’t been a child for a very long time. Her mother ripped all that away from her and then her husband came in and destroyed what was left of her.

This strangely quiet healer however barely ever speaks to the other servants except to bark orders at them. Later, she sends them away in a fit of rage, irritated with their foolishness and incompetence. Not long after, while being tended to Regina noticed that the woman was looking at her with a peculiar sadness in her eyes. It wasn’t quite pity but she’s too tired, too broken to even care if it is.

“It’s not your fault, your majesty.” She finally speaks and her words take her by surprise. When she opens her mouth to respond she finds that she has nothing to say. Instead she just listens as the woman says “These things just happen.”

Tears prick at her eyes and she shuts them so this woman won’t see her weakness. It is her fault. She can’t even provide the king with a child. That’s what her duty is as queen. She’s not sure she’ll ever be able to and the thought leaves her breathless with fear. What would he do with her if she never produced a child?

The next few minutes pass in silence and the healer doesn’t seem to mind.

“Was it a boy or a girl?” It’s like the question tumbled from her lips on its own accord. It’s something she’d been wondering ever since she found out she was pregnant and she isn’t sure why she’s asking now. The answer will only make her grief worse but nonetheless she feels as if she needs to know.

“A boy, your majesty.”

A boy. He had been a beautiful baby boy. Would he have had her dark hair? Her brown eyes? Would he have had Snow’s green eyes? Despite the circumstances of his conception she had loved this child already. It wasn’t his fault his father was an awful man.

This one, her son, had lasted longer than the others and she’d been delighted by the way she felt him move within her. He frequently kicked and moved about and for that reason she had truly believed he might live. This one was strong she had told herself and this one would be born alive and healthy.

Earlier tonight she had been awakened by a horrible pain in her stomach and to her horror the sheets were stained with her blood. She screamed and screamed for help until the servants had scrambled to her aid but there was nothing any of them could do for her child. He was dead before he even left her womb. He had been born far too early to survive on his own they said.

“Why?” She finally asked because she truly didn’t understand why this kept happening to her. What was wrong with her? Why did every life she attempted to bring into this world perish?

She felt the bed dip with the healer’s weight as she sat down on the edge of the mattress, looking at her with that same, sad look in her eyes. “I don’t know.”

She let out a sob she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding back. “Did he suffer?”

“I doubt it, your grace.” She was grateful for that then. She was grateful that her little boy hadn’t suffered because of her failure..but she would never forget she was still was the reason he would never draw his first breath.

Then the healer lifted a glass of water up to her lips. “Drink.” She said sternly in a tone that brooked no argument. She did as she was told because she didn’t have the strength to argue and the woman’s tone vaguely reminded her of her mother. The cold water soothed the burning in her throat however and she ended up drinking every last drop.

“Now, rest. You’ve had a long day.” She stiffened when a hand came to rest on her forehead, brushing back the stray hairs that clung to her damp skin but then slowly but surely she relaxed into the touch. It was soothing. It seemed like something a mother would do but she could only remember her mother doing it once. She had been ten or eleven when she caught some sort of flu and for whatever reason it hit her especially hard. She had been deathly ill but she could still remember her mother sitting by her beside and stroking her hair. She even kissed her forehead. 

She also remembered wishing she would get ill again just so her mother would run her fingers through her hair like that again. So, Cora would kiss her forehead and sit with her again. Worst of all she remembered standing outside in the cold in just her nightgown and hoping she would get ill but the only thing she had gotten was a harsh reprimand from her mother for being foolish. 

Her father held her on occasion, giving her hugs and holding her hand when she was scared but that all stopped when Cora began to snap at him to stop coddling her. 

Daniel had been the most generous with his touch. Holding her hand, kissing her cheeks and then her nose because it made her giggle and he always said her laughter was the most beautiful sound in the world. She wasn’t entirely convinced but she could never get enough of his touch so she never corrected him. Once she had even lain in the hay loft with him, resting her head on his chest while he stroked her hair and murmured soft, loving words in her ear. When she cried he wiped away her tears and promised that he would hold her like this every night when they were married. He would always keep her safe just as she would always keep him safe. No one would ever raise a hand to her again. 

They were both so wrong, about everything. Now because of a little girl’s foolishness he would never hold her again and she was trapped in a marriage she had never wanted. The King took his rights and then left her to suffer in silence.

She didn’t like to think about the King’s touch. He was rough without meaning to be and she suspected he didn’t really care if she was in pain anyway. It made her skin crawl to think about him and no matter how hard she scrubbed her skin when she bathed the feeling never went away for long.

She didn’t want him to touch her but it was her duty as his queen. So, now she simply laid there until he was done. She no longer cried when he entered her because all that did was anger him. Instead she just closed her eyes and went away inside and then eventually she didn’t feel anything at all. 

It had been so long since anyone had touched her with anything resembling kindness and yet tonight the healer’s touch was warm and gentle and…she was so very tired. She was so very tired of everything and it was easy to let the woman’s gentle caresses lull her to sleep.

When she woke up the next morning there was a single red rose by her bedside. She didn’t smile because she wasn’t sure she had it in her to smile anymore but she pressed it and kept it with her diary and the letter Rumplestiltskin had written to her mother.

When she saw the healer again she told her the rose was pretty and oh, how foolish was she? She didn’t even know her name. Mortified, she opened her mouth to speak but the healer simply offered her the barest hint of a smile and interrupted her.

“Mildred. Mildred Ratched.”

Their relationship would take a different turn when she grew older. Eventually she began to long for something more. She longed for someone to touch her in a way that wasn’t painful and unwanted. So, one night when Mildred was sitting on the edge of her bed, telling her about some medicinal herb that might be able to help her keep a child she reached for her. At first the other woman had seemed startled but then slowly but surely she wrapped her arms around her and held her.

Her touch was warm and comforting but it had a different effect on her too now. One she wasn’t particularly used to feeling with anyone, let alone another woman. Somehow Mildred had seemed to pick up on it because she placed a hand on her cheek and murmured “it’s alright.” When her eyes darted down to her lips, giving away her thoughts Mildred just smiled.

Then she kissed her and it was the first kiss she had received in years that didn’t make her want to empty the contents of her stomach onto the floor.

They kissed and kissed and when she commented on the ache between her thighs Mildred had laughed and assured her she would take care of that. Then she slid a hand between her thighs and touched her in a way that left her gasping and biting the pillow to keep from crying out. When she was too exhausted to continue and she was sure she had satisfied the other woman too she fell asleep with nimble fingers running through her hair and the memory of Mildred’s lips pressed against her forehead.

It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence after that. She found herself calling for her just so she could see her using headaches and various ailments as her excuses. No one thought anything of it and for that she was thankful. If they were discovered then the King would have both of their heads.

It wasn’t always an excuse however. Sometimes she called for her because the King had been too rough with her and left her bruised and in pain. Anger would blaze in the other woman’s steely blue eyes and she would curse the King under her breath as she tended to her. There were very few people who would dare speak ill of the King but Mildred did and Regina loved her for it. 

As time went by she grew older and her heart grew darker. Mildred too grew cold and more jaded but never to her. She was especially harsh with the other servants and unruly patients but Regina didn’t bat an eye. It was a consequence of the world they lived in. She wondered sometimes what her life had been like before the King brought her here but Mildred never talked about her past and Regina never asked. If she ever wanted to tell her it would have to be her decision.

Years after their first meeting she ended the marriage that had been her prison for over a decade. Her husband’s funeral had been a grand ordeal but if she had it her way she would have thrown his body into the river for the fish. Snow White cried and cried and Regina wept crocodile tears for the man she hated with every fiber of her being. She held Snow as she cried and imagined wrapping her hands around her throat until the light in them disappeared forever. 

As she went about thanking the guests and accepting condolences she caught Mildred’s eye and the other woman smiled. It was a small smile and Regina swore she saw pride in her eyes before she turned around to look at the coffin that held her former King. ‘He deserved it. I know’ The smile seemed to say and Regina had to turn her head away to hide her own smile.

She was finally free.

“Give them hell.” Mildred told her one night while curled up in bed beside her and oh, she gave them all hell. She did so with a smile on her face and grew to relish every single, horrid second of it.

Mildred stayed by her side through her reign as The Evil Queen and then again in Storybrooke. Regina wasn’t entirely sure what she had done to earn her loyalty but it was appreciated all the same.

She would never quite figure out how to voice that appreciation. Instead every year on Valentine’s Day she brought her a single red rose and every time without fail Mildred looked at her and simply said.

“Pretty.”


End file.
